GOLGO 13 Part 3 Review

Golgo 13 is a series that follows an assassin named Golgo 13. The Anime series is a show based around getting to know a particular target and the events leading up until their death. It’s also about sex-scenes and facial close-ups.

Is this a series for you? Find out by reading the rest of this review.

Story

Golgo 13, an assassin that kills people for money has to kill people for money. And really, that’s all there is to this shows story. There isn’t any kind of seemingly obvious story arc to the show, from what I can tell there haven’t been any real recurring villains. There is really no reason for this show to be continuing at all.

Each episode of Golgo 13 will typically play out in the following fashion. First, and foremost, the episode will begin with a dramatic moment that lacks both tension and a reason for us to care. This will usually set us up for the characters that will be killed by Golgo at the end of the episode. Although, if one of the characters is female, Golgo will have sex with her before killing her.

After this beginning segment, the show will then take us through the events leading up to those particular characters being killed. This often means that we’ll be seeing things from their perspective for long periods of time. When we finally see Golgo doing stuff it’ll usually just be him collecting information on them or it will be of him sleeping with them. During these scenes, there will be three closeups of Golgos face, one of which will have dramatic music.

So after this middle segment of unentertaining quality and predictability, we will finally make it to the conclusion of the episode where Golgo kills his targets. This is typically done with a gun and is often a trying attempt at being dramatic. However, you’re not really given long enough to care about any of the characters in the episode and it leaves the whole thing feeling flat and boring. Also, for what reason do any of these women sleep with Golgo other than he just looks at them, with a closeup.

If you’re a fan of the Golgo 13 manga, stick to that, this series will really not do all that much for you. In fact, it may even lessen the experience.

Visuals

Do you like close-ups of faces? No? Well too bad you do now, because Golgo says you do. It’s his show and he likes close-ups of his face being in it. Seriously, I just can not find a reason why these close-ups are relevant. I think they were supposed to be dramatic; but they’re not. They’re just silly. I remember watching this one episode where a film crew is watching Golgo through a satellite camera and he looks right up at the camera (which is in space, mind you) and the show cuts to a close-up of his face. Why?! Why is this even a thing?

From a more general perspective, nothing in this show is particularly fresh or different. It’s like the producers just wanted a Golgo 13 Anime and pushed it out as effortlessly as possible. It’s so hard to be critical of this shows visuals when a simple: “They’re just bad”, will suffice.

One more thing I want to mention, I’m putting it here in the visuals because it’s a visual thing, but who uses an automatic rifle as a long range weapon? Why didn’t they give Golgo an actual long range sniper rifle? It’s like everything in this show is about getting things wrong.

Audio

Flat. Flat, flat, flat, flat, flat! Everything that isn’t this shows opening theme is simply flat. The voice acting is horrible, the background score (when it exists) is incredibly bad and having this subpar audio experience only further detracts from this horrible experience.

This shows dub is pretty ridiculously bad. It’s only made worse by having the main character almost never speak. This means that you’ll never get used to his voice, regardless of the few times you’ve heard it in the past. The Japanese dub is almost as bad. In fact I preferred the English dub; but not by much.

I will however state this again, the opening theme is pretty cool. The ending theme is also pretty well done, but it pales in comparison (like most do). Listen to the song at least once before you die.

Extras

It’s not listed on the packaging, but there are indeed extras included with the package. Included with this particular edition of the series are the Clean Opening and Closing themes present in this section of the series. There are also trailers to superior Anime series licensed by Siren Visual. These are: Durarara and Princess Resurrection.

Overall

If you’re someone that has been keeping up with Golgo 13 this far into the series, you are most definitely a much more resilient person than I am. You will probably also really enjoy this release as it is really more of the same. However, if you’re someone looking to get into Golgo 13, do not under any circumstances do it. There are superior series out there that do the theme so much better.

My final recommendation, avoid at all costs. *Close-up of face; dramatic music*.